Saturday, March 03, 2012

Misogyny


Seriously. Why has misogyny become one of THE political campaigning issues of current times?

One of the few shreds of legitimate criticism that Westerners have made of Middle-Eastern and Islamic cultures over the last 10 years, is of the status and treatment of women in those societies. And yet, right-wing conservatives in the West seem hell-bent on rivalling that. ???

2 comments:

John Powers said...

George Lakoff has tried to influence liberal framing in political discourse. He observes that a very common metaphor that people use for politics is "the family." Liberals tend to imagine a nurturing family whereas conservatives a strict father family.

To the extent we do view politics as family, then I suspect even conservatives know that "Dad" is a drunk and abusive. Maybe there's something to be gained from the recovery movement?

Frances Moore Lappe wrote a piece encouraging us to drop the family metaphor entirely--the formatting at that link is funky--in favor of a just community metaphor.

I think her point is a good one, but I'm not at all sure people can change the metaphors they live by through an act of will.

Anyhow, I think the family metaphor for politics is one way to understand why misogyny is so important to the political campaign.

John Powers said...

via Dave Winer Aaron Bady on Rush Limbaugh and "sluts."

I think I've lost the thread about Netocracy, still somehow when I read your posts I tend to think about it.

Elsewhere you pointed to PayPal disallowing payments for certain kinds of ebooks. It fits the broader pattern of walled gardens and books.

What I'd missed in thinking about imploitation is the active measures to keep information from being shared.

I recently re-read "Fortunate Son" a biography of George W. Bush. There is a backstory to the book, St. Martins press recalled all the copies and burned them and the author was hounded into committing suicide.

After reading the book I wonder "Why?" what was the big deal?

Bady's post: " privilege must remain ignorant of itself, because it’s the right to enjoy benefits which you aren’t even aware that others get denied."

I think there's something Netocratic going on, but like I say I'm probably missing the thread.